British Rail Class 442
The British Rail Class 442 ''Wessex Electric'' (or 5WES) electrical multiple units were introduced in 1988 on the South Western Main Line from London Waterloo to Southampton Central, Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth. Twenty-four of these 5-car units were built in 1988/89 by BREL at its Derby works. Their introduction coincided with the completion of electrification from Bournemouth to Weymouth. Post-privatisation, the entire fleet was operated by South West Trains up until February 2007, when the Class 442 services were replaced by Class 444 and Class 450 Desiros. In 2008 Southern began refurbishing the units for the Gatwick Express service from Brighton to Gatwick Airport and London Victoria. The Southern refurbishment and overhaul programme meant by May 2011 the fleet had replaced all the Class 460 Juniper units, although 2 Class 460 Junipers were reinstated in October the same year. The trains were withdrawn in 2016 from Gatwick Express services and in March 2017 from peak time Southern services (Brighton to London Bridge and Eastbourne to London Bridge). Eighteen units are to be reintroduced on London Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour services by South Western Railway in December 2018. These 18 units will be refurbished before their use in service. South Western Railway has awarded Kiepe Electric UK the contract to undertake the $45m refurbishment. Work will involve replacing the life-expired DC traction equipment with AC package involving IGBT technology from Kiepe Electric Dusseldorf. New brake controls from Knorr-Bremse Rail Vehicle Systems will permit regenerative braking. The class holds the world speed record for a third rail train with , attained on 11 April 1988. Description The Class 442 Wessex Electric is based on the British Rail Mark 3 carriage bodyshell, and has a number of features which distinguish it from the slam-door units it replaced: * Vehicle length is , as opposed to . * All vehicles are air-conditioned, and have powered internal doors and external plug doors. * Units consist of five vehicles, and operate as 5-car or 10-car trains, replacing 4-car units which operated as 4-, 8- or 12-car trains. * Maximum permitted speed is . As was common on the British Rail Southern Region, many electrical components – including traction motors and electrical control gear – were salvaged from the Class 432 units they replaced. For this reason the older 4REP and 4TC units had to be withdrawn before their replacements were built. The Class 442 "Wessex Electric" was one of the first types to make extensive use of plastics in construction, earning them the nickname among staff and rail enthusiasts of "Pigs" or "Piggies". When they were first introduced the units were plagued by minor technical failures, but they have subsequently become among the most reliable EMUs operating in the UK. Their generous accommodation made them some of the most luxurious long-distance commuter trains anywhere. The increased top speed of the Class 442, combined with timetable changes, resulted in some minor journey time improvements, for example a non-stop service reaching Southampton Airport Parkway from London Waterloo in 58 minutes, over a journey of around . The timetable change of December 2004 meant that the down non-stop train from London Waterloo took an hour to reach Winchester. Network SouthEast The first unit was handed over to Network SouthEast on 18 December 1987. The units were initially used solely on the Weymouth line, but through the 1990s began to be used on the London Waterloo to Portsmouth direct line. South West Trains Upon privatisation the whole fleet passed to the South West Trains franchise. Unit 442402 soon had an orange stripe added to its Network SouthEast livery, which looked very similar to Stagecoach Group's corporate image. From 1998 the units began to receive the new South West Trains Express livery of white, red and blue as they underwent overhaul at Crewe Works. Unit 442404 was the first to be so treated. During the late 1990s and early 2000s the fleet continued to operate express services from London to Weymouth and Portsmouth. However in 2004, when the Class 444 "Desiro" trains had been brought into service, the "Wessex Electrics" were again used solely on the Weymouth line. In early 2006 the fleet began to receive overhauls, with units emerging in a slightly revised livery which conformed with the Disability Discrimination Act. By January 2007 14 of the 24 units had received overhauls. Despite their recent overhauls, South West Trains withdrew the entire fleet in 2007. They replaced them by Class 444s, which were in turn replaced by Class 450s spare from the re-introduction of Class 458s into traffic after modifications to their destination displays. The last class 442 Weymouth to London Waterloo operation was on 24 January 2007 with the final service on 3 February 2007. The lease expired on 4 February 2007 at 0200. The units were moved from Bournemouth Traincare Depot to Eastleigh Works for warm storage. Southern Southern originally leased 17 of these units to operate the extended Gatwick Express service which began in December 2008. Originally some units were kept out of service for spare parts. In October 2008 unit 442414 became the first unit to be fully refurbished inside and out, 442412 and 442421 following shortly afterwards. The new extended Gatwick Express service was introduced on 15 December 2008. The new service, operating Monday to Friday, comprises six services in the morning from Brighton and six services to Brighton in the evening with an additional service terminating at Haywards Heath. In April 2009 Southern took an extra two units from Eastleigh Works to make up for the shortfall in units caused by their use on other services. When Govia retained the Southern franchise, it was announced that the off-lease 442s would come back into use after mechanical overhaul as well as internal and external refurbishment. In turn, Southern began withdrawing its Class 460 units from service, with the last unit being withdrawn after the London 2012 Olympics. Since 2012 the branding on the units has been modified to read simply 'Express' rather than 'Gatwick Express' to avoid passenger confusion when used on fast Brighton mainline services that do not call at Gatwick. Govia has ordered 108 Class 387/2 carriages for the Brighton and Gatwick Express services. The 387s began to enter service on 29 February 2016, with the Class 442s phased out by the end of 2016, with the exception of Brighton and Eastbourne peak-time commuter services, which continued to be operated by a pair of 442s until March 2017. The last passenger service was on 10 March 2017 which was the 17:57 London Bridge to Brighton formed of units 442410 and 442413. A railtour ran on 12 March 2017 by units 442402 and 442408 commemorate the final send off to entire fleet from services on the Brighton Main Line. All were taken to Ely for storage. South Western Railway In March 2017, South Western Railway has awarded the South Western franchise, announcing plans to refurbish and enter 18 Class 442s into service for use in London Waterloo to Portsmouth services. These were being refurbished at Bournemouth depot and will release Class 450s Desiro Main Line stock for use elsewhere on the South Western Railway network. Other proposals The Department for Transport included Class 442s as an option for the TransPennine Express franchise, however the winning bidder did not take up the option. In November 2016, Alliance Rail announced plans to use the 442s on a new intercity express route which will operate on the South Western Main Line between London Waterloo and Southampton Central. If approved by the Office of Road and Rail, this services will be operated by Alliance trading as Grand Southern, as an open access operator. The services will be operated as intercity services with each 5 car train offering about 300 seats. Preservation In 2016, a driving car was nominated for preservation by the Railway Heritage Designation Advisory Board. This will see one preserved after it is being retired. Accidents *On 3 September 1989, unit 2407 ran away from Bournemouth depot and hit the buffers. Units are numbered 442401–424 and are formed of two outer driving trailers, two intermediate trailers, and an intermediate motor vehicle. In accordance with Southern Region practice, the units only carried the last four digits of their unit numbers when in service with South West Trains. Units refurbished for Southern now carry the full six digits. Individual vehicles are numbered as follows: *77382–77405 - DTS - Driving Trailer Standard (formerly DTFo (Driving Trailer First Semi-open) ) *71818–71841 - TSO - Trailer Standard Open *62937–62960 - MLC - Motor Luggage Composite (formerly MBLS (Motor Buffet Lounge Standard) ) *71842–71865 - TSW - Trailer Standard Wheelchair *77406–77429 - DTS - Driving Trailer Standard The motor buffet vehicles were all modernised in a works programme at Crewe Works in 1997/98. At the same time units were repainted from their original Network SouthEast livery into South West Trains livery. During 2006 Angel Trains sent some units to Bombardier at Ilford, where the livery was modified to make it Disability Discrimination Act friendly; however, not all trains were modified as it was later announced that the trains were to be withdrawn from service. In 2008, units started to go to Wolverton works for refurbishment. The refurbishment included the removal of the buffet from the motor coach, all new seats, and the removal of first class from the front of the train to the motor coach. The description of this formation is DTS+TSO+MLC+TSW+DTS. During the years of Network SouthEast and South West Trains, various units have received names. Most of these were towns or places along the routes that they worked, but a few were for publicity purposes. When the South West Trains lease expired all nameplates were removed. The complete fleet list is shown below, with details of vehicle numbers, former names and livery. External links * Class 442 Desiro - Siemens, Gatwick Express References 442 442